Canadiens versus Leafs: Two rivals meet again, but they’ve changed

What you need to understand is that it was a different time. There was no television. No computers. In winter, in the small towns and villages of rural Quebec, the roads were buried so deep in snow the cars could not get through. Communities were isolated. But inside every house, beside every fireplace, was a radio.

On Saturday nights the family, the entire province, drew near. Leaning in. Listening. Waiting for the radio play-by-play man’s cadence to quicken as Butch Bouchard delivered a bone-crushing hit, Billy Durnan made a spectacular save or Maurice Richard, The Rocket, roared down the ice, zeroing in on goal, lifting the crowd at the Montreal Forum to its feet.

“When the Canadiens were playing, you have to understand, it was a personal experience for us,” says Roch Carrier, author of Le Chandail de Hockey, better known to English-speaking Canadians as The Hockey Sweater, the beloved children’s book about a French Canadian kid, in a tiny Quebec village, mistakenly being sent a Toronto Maple Leafs sweater by “Mr. Eaton.”

Related

“When the Canadiens would play, we played with them. When there was a fight, we were fighting. It was a very important experience for Quebecers. As kids, you dream of heroes. If you wanted to be Superman you could put on your back a pillowcase as a cape, but you cannot fly — you can just jump.

“But if you put on your skates you could play like The Rocket. You could become The Rocket, and for French-Canadians there was no greater pleasure for us on Sunday morning than talking about how the Canadiens had trounced the Maple Leafs the night before.

Mr. Carrier was born in 1937. Between his birth and 1967 — a notable date among Leafs supporters marking the last time the franchise captured a Stanley Cup — Toronto and Montreal combined to win 20 championships. They met in the final five times, with Toronto holding a 3-2 series edge.

More than anything, they mattered, on the ice, and away from it. Canada was two solitudes. Each had a team. There were no Senators, no Oilers, no Jets, no Canucks and no Flames around to diffuse tribal loyalties. Just Toronto and Montreal — take your pick.

On Saturday they meet, again, in Montreal, in the final game of a forgettable season for both clubs. It is not a contest for last place, though it might as well be. The players involved will invariably mouth hollow words to reporters about the tradition, about the rivalry, about the pride in wearing the sweater — be it the maple leaf or the bleu, blanc et rouge. Hockey Night in Canada will presumably add to the hype, perhaps even by showing some ancient footage of The Rocket.

“In order to have a true rivalry you need both teams to be decent,” says Andre Richelieu, a sports marketing professor at Laval University. “On the competitive front the Toronto/Montreal rivalry has disappeared, and on the cultural front things have changed.

“This identity issue that once defined both these franchises has mostly disappeared. Toronto is a multi-cultural city, and reflects how diverse we are as a society. Montreal has become more multi-cultural. And if you ask the fans, and our research shows this, Leafs fans might like to have more Canadian-born players on their roster and Montreal fans might like to have more French-Canadian players on their roster, but what really matters to them is having a competitive team so they can aspire, again, for the game’s greatest honours.”

Tribal taboos and cultural sensitivities still exist, mind you, in Montreal, where a mangled season was made even worse when Randy Cunneyworth, an Anglophone coach, from a Toronto suburb, took over from the French-Canadian Jacques Martin. The linguistic brouhaha, however, was internal, a struggle at the soul of Habs Nation, not beyond.

Times, then, really have changed. Dick Duff is a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame and a six-time Stanley Cup champion, earning two of his rings with the Leafs and four more with the Canadiens in the 1960s.

He remembers a game at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. Maurice Richard nicked a tendon at the back of his ankle. Blood filled his skate boot. Toronto’s English-speaking doctors were dispatched to examine the Canadiens legend.

“He wouldn’t let the doctor in Toronto touch him,” says Mr. Duff. “He said, ‘It will be fixed in Montreal. It will be fixed by my people.’ ”

“

The Montreal guys, they thrived on playing in Toronto. Coming to the WASP-land of Toronto to play, boy oh boy, and you think the Irish had trouble — imagine the French?”

Imagine each game being bigger than the players involved. Habs v. Leafs was the sporting embodiment of a larger culture war. Language: French or English? Religion: Roman Catholic or Protestant? Team: Montreal or Toronto? And that was Canada, once upon a time.

“These tensions between French and English Canadians have diluted enormously, especially since the referendum of 1995,” Prof. Richelieu says. “The sectarian approach doesn’t reflect where we are today as a society.

“If we want to renew the rivalry both the Leafs and the Canadiens will have to have a better product.”

Going back to the past will only, I would say, increase the paradox of what we pretend to be and what we have today, which is two very mediocre hockey teams.”

It is difficult to escape the past, however, especially for those who lived it, and especially in Quebec, where memory runs deep. The Montreal Forum closed in March 1996. Canadiens greats of old were honoured during a pre-game ceremony. Arena lights were dimmed. The last player introduced was Maurice Richard.

An ovation erupted, and on and on it went: one minute, two, three, five — seven minutes — rising, falling, gathering speed, rolling about the rafters, until the public address announcer finally urged the patrons — in French — to take their seats.

This wasn’t hockey. This was religion. This was the house that the Rocket built, and there he was, 36-years after he had retired, an uneducated, French-Canadian folk hero basking in the glow.

“They’d still be cheering for him if they hadn’t turned the lights back on,” Mr. Duff says, cackling with glee.

There are other images.

A famous photograph from Roch Carrier’s childhood picturing the author of the famous book, about an infamous Toronto Maple Leafs sweater, wearing said sweater while smiling into the camera.

“When my Mom said smile — you smiled,” he says, laughing.

Mr. Carrier will not be taking any hockey sweaters away with him for Easter weekend.

“We have a trip planned,” he says. “I am not sure I will be available to watch the Montreal-Toronto game. It is difficult now, no, but next year? I will be there — for the first game. A lot of people in Montreal, and Toronto, they say that: ‘Next year.’”

Next year. When the hockey rivalry that once defined a country might actually matter again, at least competitively, and when the talk of trouncing the Leafs, of making the playoffs, of winning the Stanley Cup starts anew.